It was in designing his attorney’s letterhead that Mark van Bronkhorst noticed how few fonts existed that were based on engravers’ alphabets, the Sackers collection being one exception. What’s more, none had been developed into type families with an extensive range of weights. Sourcing original engraver masterplates, he did the work of adapting these styles to the constraints of digital type.

Another rising trend comes from the range of routed letters used in signs and labels, like in the sign above I recently spotted outside the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos in Cordoba. Routed lettering is done with a fixed bit, often reducing letters to a single path with a monolinear stroke.

While some older examples of routed lettering translated to type exist, more or less as documentary types (I’m thinking of DIN 17 and Normalise DIN), some new examples of families that pull from this aesthetic include NeubauLaden’sNB Grotesk-R.